


The Liminal Whiteout

by lightsaroundyourvanity



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Femslash February, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Girls Kissing, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Purring, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 19:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17628047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightsaroundyourvanity/pseuds/lightsaroundyourvanity
Summary: Adora and Catra get snowed in during a fight.





	The Liminal Whiteout

Adora has been hiking through these icy hills for what feels like weeks, but which she glumly admits to herself has only been a handful of hours. The first hour had been fine. Great, even. Breezy. Adora had set out prepared: Swapped her boots for spiked cleats, bundled up, worn extra socks. She-Ra’s sword was a familiar presence at her back, warm and beating like a heart through all of her layers. Adora had tramped through the half-beaten path, confident and assured.

In the hours that followed, she had started to lose steam. The icy brush was bitter, dirty, relentless, and the sullen cold began to chew at her fingertips and the shells of her ears, despite woolly mittens and muffs. Adora’s brash confidence began to waver.

And then it had started to snow.

“Stupid missions,” Adora mutters to herself now. “Stupid First One’s tech, lost in a…” she fumbles for the word, and wrinkles her nose. It’s so cold that the skin on her face feels stiff. “A _stupid freaking wasteland tundra,_ ” Adora snaps to the hills. The wind whines a pitiless response, and wet flakes of snow smack Adora’s uncovered cheeks. 

Underneath the layers of frustration and sweaters and permafrost, Adora knows that she’s doing something that needs to be done. That she’s the _only_ one who can do this, because she’s She-Ra and protecting Etheria is literally her job and Glimmer had sworn up and down that her intelligence was good, and that there was a substantial rumour about an unusual piece of First One’s tech out here – potentially, everybody was hoping, one of the lost rune stones. But she’s having trouble mustering up the nerve to _feel_ any of that right now. She’s having trouble mustering the nerve to feel anything but cold, and resentful, even the tiniest bit pitiful.

The Fright Zone was an evil, destructive regime, but at least it had been _warm._ The heavy machinery that was the spine of Hordak’s empire didn’t function properly in colder temperatures, and the constant buzz of brisk activity had kept the air thick. And Adora can’t believe that she is such an absolute baby in the cold that she’s waxing nostalgic about the _Fright Zone_ now. Adora shakes her head to clear it and stops walking for a beat.

She doesn’t want to stop moving and invite further chill, so Adora stamps her feet and runs her gloved hands over her arms while she looks around. The snow is coming down fast and thick now, obscuring even this ragged landscape. Adora quickly realizes that if she hasn’t lost her way already, she is about to.

“Couldn’t have heard of a rune stone in the middle of a lavender field, huh?” Adora grumbles to herself as he reaches into her coat and fishes out the tracker pad that Bow had passed onto her back at Bright Moon. It’s bitingly cold, and Adora imagines that if she tested its edge with her tongue, she’d become glued to it, immediately and irreparably. Instead the taps the screen firmly and waits for it to power on. Nothing happens. Adora groans. She jabs the screen again. Nothing.

Adora throws the tracker pad away in disgust, and it pits deep into the snow.  She glares at it for a moment and then sighs, drops to her knees and starts digging to fetch it, already regretting the impulse move.

That’s when Adora hears something crunch behind her.

“Who’s there?” Adora jumps to her feet and looks around quickly. Her arm is already stretched behind her, grasping for the hilt of her sword. Adora tears it from its sheath as she hears soft movement, sees a quick shadow flip between the trails of mounting snow. She lunges for it, weapon drawn. She lands on nothing. Adora stumbles, starts to pitch forward, and catches herself. She turns again, in a slow circle, her eyes narrowed, her sword raised.

“Hey, Adora.”

Adora has time for one, fleeting thought — _Catra!_ — before she is tackled from behind. She lands on her chest with an ungainly “Oof!” and there is a heavy weight in her lungs when the wind is knocked from them. Her whole body stings where it slammed into ice and snow.

Adora scrambles to get away from Catra, but Catra has her pinned. Adora shoves her elbow back. It connects with something hard, and Adora hears Catra yowl in pain. She uses this split second opening to crawl away from Catra and jump back to her feet.

When Adora looks ahead, Catra has already recovered. She sneers, and Adora raises her sword.

“What are you _doing_ here, Catra?”

“Seriously, Adora?” Catra shakes out her hair. “ _Obviously_ , I followed you.”  

Adora doesn’t bother to ask why Catra would follow her out into a blizzard, because something about it feels inevitable, like asking the moon why it follows the sunset. Instead, she angles her sword across her body. “Well, stop,” she spits at Catra.

Catra shrugs, and for the first time, Adora notices that she’s not wearing a coat. “This is neutral territory. Your Princess laws don’t count out here.” Catra smiles slowly, showing teeth. “Make me." 

Like the moon following the sunset, Adora rises to the occasion. She throws herself at Catra with a yell. Catra skips backwards, laughing, but Adora is gaining the higher ground now, and she knows it. She chops at Catra with the flat of her blade, lands a solid hit on Catra’s bicep. Catra hisses. Her claws flash and strike through the air, but only catch at the oiled sleeve of Adora’s jacket. Adora swings again, low, and hits Catra’s thigh. Catra’s knee buckles, and Adora attacks again. Catra lands hard on all fours.

Adora thrusts her sword into the ground point first and takes a step towards Catra. “How did you know where to find me? Did Shadow Weaver send her… her _things_ after me again?”

Catra glances up at Adora, and she’s licked, but she still wears that smug expression, the one that says, _Adora, you are so fucking stupid._ It makes Adora feel angry, and sour, and inexplicably, distantly lonely, and she reacts on that, hauling Catra up by the front of her shirt and shaking her.

“Tell me!”

Catra cocks her head. “Uh, you carry a giant magic sword with you everywhere you go. You know you show up on every tracker pad, right? It’s better than a homing beacon.”

Hot, shameful chagrin overwhelms Adora. Why hadn’t anybody thought of that before? Why hadn’t she? Again, she takes it out on Catra. They’re standing in the shadow of a steep, rocky hill. Adora lifts Catra and shoves her against the hillside. Trickles of scree and snow are shaken loose from the rough action. For the first time, Catra starts to look nervous.

“What’s wrong?” Adora asks. “Didn’t plan to get caught?”

“No, I thought I…” Catra trails off thoughtfully. Half a moment later, her expression hardens. “Put me down, Adora. It’s not like you’re going to kill me out here and bury me in the snow.”

Adora’s grip on Catra tightens. “I’ll take you back to Bright Moon. Queen Angella would _love_ to have a Force Captain to question.”

“Right.” Catra’s eyes scan the landscape. “Do you even know how to get back in this?”

Adora’s glance skates to the left. Her path is gone, her line of vision half-hidden by the angry swirl of snow. She wonders what Catra sees. Adora looks back at Catra. There are snowflakes caught in her eyelashes. Her eyes below them glitter like blue and amber stones. Too late, Adora realizes that she’s let her hold on Catra grow slack when Catra twists away and wriggles back to the ground. Adora throws a punch, but Catra is too quick, and Adora’s fist connects with the hillside. It makes a mighty crack worthy of She-Ra, and Adora feels the ground quiver beneath her feet.

Something isn’t right. Adora feels it before she hears it, a dreadful vibration in the earth followed by a distant _whump._ She looks up just in time to see a sheet of snow and ice sliding down the side of the hill, but it’s coming too fast, and her feet are rooted in place.

“ _Adora!”_

For the second time that day, Adora is assaulted by the weight of Catra’s body when she tackles her from behind. They land in an awkward heap, skid through the snow, and come to an abrupt stop when Adora collides with a rocky wall. 

Adora lies still for a moment, breathing hard. Catra is still heavy on top of her, and the roar of the avalanche settling is white noise behind her. Nothing else hits her. Adora struggles to her elbows as Catra rolls off of her, dazed and groaning. Adora looks around.

By way of a miracle, Catra has shoved her into a hollow under the hillside, rendered invisible until now by the snow. By way of an absolute curse, the falling snow has blocked off the entrance. They are both sealed in.

Catra realizes this at the same time as Adora and jumps into a low crouch. “I’m getting out of here,” she growls. She makes as if to lunge for the snow-covered entrance, but Adora grabs her by the wrist.

“Catra, wait. It might not be safe yet.”

Catra growls again, a low, short sound from the base of her throat. She rips her arm free and rubs her wrist as though Adora’s touch had left a stain. “You would know, wouldn’t you? All of your punching and stomping around. This is your fault!” Catra starts to pace. Her tail swishes angrily.

Adora gapes after her in outrage. “ _My_ fault? You’re the one who attacked me out of nowhere in the middle of a blizzard!”

Catra stops pacing, but her tail continues to twitch. “Well… you’re the one who got caught!”

“ _You’re_ the one who got caught!”

Adora stands with her balled fists on her hips and faces off against Catra, who matches her dark expression, feet braced to pounce, lip curled in a sneer. Neither of them speak, but the sounds around them echo: The still-shifting drifts of snow, the muffled shriek of the wind outside, and the soft, soft rumble of Catra’s distress. Sharp tension grips Adora. She’d feel more comfortable with—

“My sword!” Adora gasps.

Catra doesn’t follow. She rolls her eyes. “Uh huh, we get it. You’ve got a big sword now, everybody watch out!”

“No it’s—” Adora glances towards the blocked cave exit. “It’s still out there.”

“ _That’s_ what you’re worried about?”

“Of course it’s what I’m worried about!” When Adora looks at Catra, Catra looks incredulous—and suddenly, less angry. And suddenly, achingly familiar. She can’t think about that right now. “I’ve—I’ve got to go get it." 

Adora moves towards the exit. This time, it’s Catra who grabs her wrist. “Woah, hold on,” says Catra. “What happened to ‘it might not be safe’?”

“This is too important for that.”

“No _sword_ could be more important than _you._ ”

If Adora is surprised to hear Catra say this, it’s nothing to the dead shock in Catra’s eyes. A slip of the tongue, then. Catra stills holds tight to Adora’s wrist. She backpedals.

“I mean, you could cause a cave in trying to go after than stupid thing, and then _I_ might be killed.”

Adora feels a bubble of fondness rise up in her, fragile and half-forgotten. “Catra…”

“And I am _not_ dying so that you can barge around like a big freaking hero for a few more days.”

“Catra—”

“In fact, if you ask me, I’d be happy if you never got that thing back.”

“ _Catra!”_

Catra shuts up. “What?”

Adora holds up her free hand in defeat. “It’s fine. I’ll stay put.”

Catra’s shoulders sag. “Oh. Good.” She lets go of Adora’s wrist and sits cross legged on the ground. “But just so we’re clear, this isn’t—”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that one before.” Adora sits opposite Catra. “So, like. Now what do we do?”

Catra’s ear twitches, listening carefully to the storm. “It’s still snowing,” she says. “We should probably wait it out.” Her glance flicks towards the rood of the cave. “There’s air coming from somewhere up there at least. For now.”

_For now_. Adora shivers. She wraps her arms around herself.

The sneer returns to Catra’s face. “I’m sure your sword will still be there when we get out of here, and you can go back to trying to bash me out of the stratosphere.” 

“That’s not what I was thinking about.” Adora sits up, indignant. “And for the record, you’re the one who is always going out of her way to pick fights with me.”

“I guess I just don’t see it that way.” Catra licks her palm, delicate and dismissive. “I’m not the one who switched sides.”

“Because the Horde is evil!” Adora doesn’t know how many times she’s said this, how many times she has it left in her to stay. “I couldn’t stay there.”

 “You mean you couldn’t stay with me.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Adora insists. “You know it’s not like that.”

Catra shrugs. “Feels like that.”

This is the impasse that always catches them. Adora left, while Catra stayed and climbed and climbed and climbed. There was a time when Adora would have pleaded for Catra to defect with her, but there’s too wide a space between them now, and they both know it. And Adora isn’t sure that she wants to anymore, anyway. Catra had hidden parts of herself, big parts: Ambitious, resentful parts that made Adora feel like crap. She feels like maybe a part of Catra always hated her, and she doesn’t know how to reconcile that with the way they still slip into easy banter when they’re together; with the vivid, living, inimitable connection between them.

“I hate this,” says Adora.

Catra’s eyes narrow. “Yeah, well, it’s no picnic for me, either. My _fur_ is _wet."_  

“Not this,” Adora waves her arm helplessly. “ _This._ You and me this. How did things get so bad, Catra? We used to be so good together. We still…”

“We weren’t though.” Catra looks uncomfortable, like its physically paining her to be candid instead of snarky. “Together, I mean. I was always just a piece of your world. I didn’t have anything of my own.” Catra looks away and inspects the tips of her nails. “And now I have… everything.” 

“I never forced you into my shadow.”

Catra’s tail flicks dangerously. “You didn’t have to. You just let it happen.”

Adora frowns. Was Catra right? In the Horde, she had been so consumed with being perfect, with being the best, with being the prodigy that she was supposed to be. Then, Catra had been her salvation, the one person who really _saw_ her through her golden reputation. Or at least, that’s what Adora had always thought. The version that Catra holds up now is uglier. Does that make it any less true? Had Adora taken Catra for granted? Had she failed to lift her up? 

“I didn’t mean to,” Adora says helplessly. She steals another glance at Catra. Catra’s stare is fixed on some invisible point behind Adora, but her eyes are wide and glassy, like she’s holding back tears. “If there was anything I could—”

“Let’s not talk anymore.” Catra blinks, and the tears are gone. She crawls to the front of the tiny cave and puts her ear to the wall.

Adora stares at the ground. She feels colder than ever now, wedged between Catra and the icy cave that they’re trapped in. Again, she remembers life at the Fright Zone, the clank and rattle of machinery, and… Catra. The warmth had always been Catra. Catra, training by Adora’s side; Catra, getting into trouble with Adora; Catra, curled up against Adora in their narrow bed at night. Sometimes Adora misses Catra so much that it makes it hard to breathe, despite everything they have and can and will do to each other.

“What are you doing?” Adora asks Catra, who still has her ear pressed to the wall.

Catra looks irritated. “I’m listening.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk anymore.”

“I’m listening to what’s happening _outside,_ ” says Catra, and there’s that look again. _God Adora, you are so fucking stupid._ “It’s still snowing pretty badly.” Catra makes a face. “We’re going to be stuck here all night.”

“If we don’t kill each other first.” Adora is kidding – she thinks. From the look Catra shoots back at her, she’s suddenly not so sure.

“Just stay out of my way,” Catra growls.

Adora raises an eyebrow and takes in the breadth of their surroundings. There’s barely enough room to stand up straight and pace. Privacy is not an option.

“ _Emotionally,”_ Catra snaps, following Adora’s train of thought. “Or whatever.”

“Right.” Despite herself, Adora feels the tiniest hint of a smile emerge. Whatever terms they’re on, she finds it charming when Catra is cranky. She can’t explain why. Or maybe she can, and it has something to do with… love.

Adora has known she’s loved Catra since they were both small, but it wasn’t until they fell apart that she realized how inexorable it was; how completely, uniquely in love with Catra she had been. Still was. Adora stumbles over the tenses in her heart and in her mind, the what-was and what-could-be; the should and the can’t and the want. She loves Catra now, as fiercely, as thoroughly, as she ever had, but she can’t ignore the break between them: The sting of betrayal, the ridged pink scars that claw down Adora’s back.  She looks at Catra and still feels swallowed whole by jagged longing, but there’s a rusty edge of hatred to it all now that Adora isn’t sure can be scrubbed away. So they fight, and they scheme, and as long as they keep their distance, Adora can keep her feelings at bay. She can keep from falling apart.

There’s no distance between them now.

“You look cold,” Catra mumbles, despite herself, or perhaps exactly because of who she is.

 “Yeah, well, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but there’s a blizzard going on out there,” says Adora. She speaks quickly, startled out of her thoughts, but Catra sneers, obviously insulted. Adora tries to walk it back. “I’m freezing,” she admits.

“It’s never cold in the Fright Zone. Do you remember?”

Adora’s head snaps up. She looks at Catra, really searches her face, trying to parse for any nasty implications. It’s not lost on her that Catra has echoed the exact refrain she’d been circling all day. It’s not lost on her that they’re still in synch. “I remember,” Adora says. “We kept each other warm.”

Catra shrugs. “The machines did most of the work.”

“ _You_ did most of the work.”

Catra shrugs again. She fidgets. “Maybe,” she finally admits. “Sounds about right.”

Their eyes meet, tentatively, and Adora feels old hope flare inside her. She’s loath to squash it down, although she knows that she’ll have to eventually. But for a fleeting moment, in this cramped old hollow, alone with Catra, she lets the warmth of that hope bathe her heart. “I miss…” Adora trails off. The words hang between them, the ones she said aloud and the ones that linger, unspoken. _I miss this. I miss our bed. I miss you, and you, and you._ It’s too much, and Adora knows it, so finally, she just shakes her head. “Never mind.”

But Catra is still watching her, constant and knowing. “Yeah,” she says. “I do, too.”

Outside, in the real world, they would never let any of this happen. The armies between them would make sure of it. Here, in the intimacy of liminal whiteout, it doesn’t matter. So when Catra edges closer to Adora, and wraps one arm around her shoulders, Adora lets her. And when Adora leans her head against Catra, the stiffness in Catra’s posture melts away. They sit like that for a long, quiet moment, listening to the wind and their own rasped breathing, and then Catra, very quietly, starts to purr.

Adora has listened to Catra purr a dozen times before, a hundred, a thousand. With it always comes the same sense of idyllic peace, as soothing as a lullaby. Adora can remember being much younger, afraid of her duties to the Horde, and even more afraid of showing it, and Catra, rubbing her cheek against Adora’s and rumbling deep in her chest until Adora was drowsy and warm and secure. How many times had they fallen asleep like that, tangled in the sheets of their bunk? Adora has lost count. What’s happening now is a sharp parody of their childhood, immensely comforting all the same. Adora wants to say something, but she’s afraid that it will shatter the moment.

Instead, Adora tilts her chin up to look at Catra, and finds that Catra is looking right at her, her eyes half closed, her features soft. And Adora still doesn’t know what to say, but she feels absurdly right in this instant, and she feels the space between their mouths grow charged, so she tilts her chin up again, and kisses Catra.

Catra makes a small, startled noise. Her eyes blink open, and Adora sees surprise pooling with desire behind them. It’s only a moment, a beat, a half of a breath, and then Catra kisses Adora back, and her eyes flutter shut. Her lips are hungry and sure. Her arm tightens around Adora’s shoulders. Adora turns in Catra’s arms so she can hold her face between her hands, and when Catra’s teeth graze Adora’s lower lip, Adora opens her mouth and sighs. Catra’s tongue slips between Adora’s lips, and her other arm slides around Adora’s waist and pulls her close. Their kissing takes on a new, desperate air, punctuated by tiny mewls and sighs, Adora’s hands skimming Catra’s face, her throat, her collarbones.

Adora still wants to say something, tell Catra that she loves her, murmur her name, _anything_ , but she’s afraid that if she does, the spell will break, and Catra will recoil and snarl. She wants this too badly: The push and pull of frantic want, their arms wrapped around each other, and Catra’s mouth on her mouth, on her jawline, on her throat. Adora wishes that she wasn’t wearing so many layers so that they could press their bodies closer. Adora wishes that they weren’t trapped in a cave in a snowstorm, but on a real date with a real bed and a real chance to spend the night together. Adora wishes that they weren’t enemies.

Adora wishes, and she wishes, and she wants. She wants so badly that a part of her doesn’t understand how the snow doesn’t steam and melt around their bodies. She wants so badly that she can’t think about anything else: Not the cold, not the missing tech, not her sword stranded outside in the snow. Instead, she kisses Catra, reckless and absolute, and when Catra starts to fumble with the buttons of Adora’s coat, Adora lets her, encourages her, wriggles free and arches against her, and finally feels the soft down of Catra’s fur against her skin, and the humming vibration of Catra’s purr against her breastbone.

Tomorrow, when they return to their violent _pas de deux_ , this moment will become a mistake; one more black mark in the litany of ways that Catra and Adora can hurt each other intimately.

Tonight, they grapple with a hidden pocket in time, and pretend that they have found a true reprieve.

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: lights tries to get her catradora sea legs


End file.
